"Stop being a crusader"

A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a British human rights organisation whose president is the former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, is calling on the UN and the international community to take action against nations and communities that punish apostasy.

Its report, No Place to Call Home, claims that apostates from Islam are subject to “gross and wideranging human rights abuses”. It adds that in countries such as Britain, with large Muslim populations in a Westernised culture, the demand to maintain a Muslim identity is intense. “When identities are precarious, their enforcement will take an aggressive form.”

As, indeed, it does in many overwhelmingly Muslim nations, where such identities are presumably not quite so "precarious"!

If the allegations in this report are accurate - and there is no reason to suppose that they are not - then the conduct of the police really was disgusting. Not only did they fail to take action against the people making the threats of violence (a response which, given their track record, is hardly surprising), but they treated the victim as if he himself were at fault. Moreover, in condemning Mr Hussein for having the temerity to live as a Christian in a neighbourhood full of Muslims, and expect not to have his house firebombed (!), the police used terminology straight out of the Islamist lexicon, condemning him for "being a crusader". Still, given that the police tried to have the makers of the documentary "Undercover Mosque" prosecuted for accurately reporting extremist comments by Muslim preachers, we shouldn't be too shocked by their response to Mr Hussein's complaint. Although I do wonder what it is about Muslims that leads the police to treat them in so favourable a manner!

More generally, the treatment meted out to Mr Hussein, and other Islamic apostates, by their erstwhile coreligionists serves to demonstrate the complete incompatibility of Western and Islamic culture. It is quite some time since I last heard of anyone being threatened with death for converting away from Christianity, and I don't recall ever meeting anyone who favoured executing apostate Christians. By contrast, 36% of young Muslims in Britain believe that converting away from Islam is an act meriting the death penalty. As I have noted before, the threats and attacks that Nissar Hussein endured were far from unique.